MBT from 7-18-7

Wednesday, July 18, 2007

Trash or Treasure? Seemed like a simple thing at the time. Heading back to where I grew up for an in formal gathering of the old gang. But I soon discovered that my currently advancing age and my vast alcohol consumption at that time had left me with many, many blank spots in my memory regarding those years. The decision was handed down that in this time of near emergency, it was time to open THE CHEST. So, into the garage I went to open THE CHEST. It began it's life as a toybox. It was just a smallish wood box, painted grey and stenciled with a pirate scene on the lid. When it came into my possession, it had already done noble duty as just a toybox for all my mom's brothers and sisters. Being as I was a teenager at the time, I promptly spray painted the whole thing a matte black and fitted it with a hasp and lock. It slowly began to accumulate things throughout my high school years, and seemed to continue in this task until the past couple of years. Now, in need of memory filler, I was going to open THE CHEST. It sits on a shelf underneath a workbench, covered with dust, and piled with various scrap bits of this and that. I cleared it off and managed to dredge the combination for the lock from the depths of my mind. The lock opened with a hollow pop. The hasp snapped back, and there it was, my history as I had chosen to remember it. Concert T's, an empty Everclear bottle, things that I had decorated my locker in high school with, a yearbook, a broken board, strips of mylar from a dance I had gone to, old notes written long ago in a study hall far away, and so many other fragments. Many things I didn't even now the significance of anymore. I just sat there onthe floor of the garage digging through a pile of my past, looking for somthing that would help tie me back to the people I was about to go see. THE CHEST did not disappoint. There were a couple of pictures, some handwritten notes, and even a Peoria Chiefs ticket stub from the night I first made love. All of these memories and so many more swirling around in my head made me feel kind of dizzy. I was like a kid in a candy store, running from one thing to another trying to sample everything, from the really sweet to the super bitter. And there seemed to be plenty of both sweet and bitter in THE CHEST. After the rush of rediscovering all this stuff started to settle down, my brain started to try and put it into some context. Why did I still have all this stuff? Where had these people gone? Had I left a mark on others the way they had seemed to have left their marks on me? What was the relevance of any of this? Staring at a picture of Amy D, the first person I ever loved (the bitter part being I realized it way too late, and at the time I was too busy trying to be someone else), I suddenly felt the void open up beneath me. I hadn't seen her in almost 20 years. What had she done in all that time? Who had she become as a person? How could I look at this picture and feel emotions that exist that far into the past? She could have become someone I would now loathe. The image I have of her in my mind, though, is that she was the type of woman then that I would love to have in my life now. I sat and looked at that picture for a long time. Wherever she is, whoever she may now be, when I look at that picture I remember her then. That, I suppose, is a small comfort. And so it went, on through the evening, for those things I could remember, there was a deep seated emotional memory that led to another sense of disconnection. THE CHEST was now mocking me. I considered dragging a garbage can over and emptying the whole contents of THE CHEST into it. But something about those memories kept me from doing it. Such bittersweetness. A smile followed by an ache of the heart. In the end, Amy, Chris, Morgan, Dee Dee, Steve, Vicky, Leesa, Darrel, Scott, Monte, Julia, Monica, and so many others were carefully packed back away, safely under lock and key. To what end, I still don't really know. Somehow, THE CHEST keeps all those little important pieces of my heart in one place.